AI has quietly slipped into everyday life in a way most people didn’t plan. It drafts messages you don’t have the energy to write. It summarizes meetings you didn’t fully hear. It turns messy thoughts into neat bullet points. For some people, it’s become a kind of “second brain”, a helpful layer of structure over a life that already feels too fast. But here’s the part we’re only starting to notice: when AI reduces friction, it can also raise expectations. The same tool that helps you cope can accidentally lock you into a pace that keeps your nervous system permanently switched on.
If you’ve ever finished using AI and thought, I’m organized, but I still feel overwhelmed, you’re not imagining it. The mind doesn’t only respond to tasks. It responds to pressure, uncertainty, and the sense that you’re never quite caught up. This article is a practical guide to using AI tools in a way that supports mental health, including a few simple CBT-informed habits, without turning your coping strategy into another source of mental load.
The Hidden Mental Load AI Can Create
AI can reduce effort in the moment, but it can also create new forms of cognitive work:
- Verification load: checking whether the output is accurate, appropriate, or safe.
- Decision load: choosing from a long list of “good” options.
- Boundary load: resisting the temptation to keep refining, searching, and re-checking.
- Always-on load: responding faster because now you can.
This isn’t just personal preference. It aligns with well-established ideas about mental workload: when systems increase demands without increasing recovery time and control, stress rises. Occupational health research links high demands and low control to poorer mental health outcomes; a systematic review on job strain and depression/anxiety illustrates how psychosocial conditions can shape wellbeing, not just individual resilience.
In other words, if you use AI to speed up life inside a system that already expects too much, you can end up scaling stress.
A Helpful Reframe: Use AI For Support, Not for Certainty
Most people don’t reach for AI because they love technology. They reach for it because they want relief: relief from confusion, from anxiety, from indecision.
But distress often comes with a trap: the more you chase certainty, the more anxious you become. AI can amplify that trap because it can generate infinite reassurance in infinite formats.
The goal is not to make AI your therapist, your judge, or your emergency plan. The goal is to make it a tool that supports you to do what humans have always needed to do: regulate, reflect, connect, and act.
A CBT-Informed Way to Use AI Without Spiraling
CBT isn’t about forcing positivity. It’s about understanding how thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and coping loops interact and then changing the parts you can change. Large reviews support CBT’s effectiveness for conditions like depression and anxiety, including broad summaries like CBT for depression.
Here are three CBT-informed ways to use AI as structure (not authority):
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Use AI To Ask You Better Questions, Not To Give You Answers
When anxiety is high, the mind narrows. You see fewer options and assume the worst.
Instead of asking AI, “What should I do?”, ask it to generate prompts like:
- “What evidence supports my fear? What evidence doesn’t?”
- “What’s the most likely outcome? The worst? The best?”
- “What’s one small action I can take today that moves me forward?”
You answer. AI structures.
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Use AI to Externalize Rumination into a One-Page Plan
Rumination feels productive, but often isn’t. It’s thinking without movement.
Try: “Turn these thoughts into (a) what I can control, (b) what I can’t, and (c) one next step.”
This nudges your brain from looping into action, which is often the point at which anxiety decreases.
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Use AI To Design “Minimum Viable” Coping Skills
Perfectionism makes coping harder. A “perfect” routine collapses under real life.
Ask: “Give me a 10-minute version of a wind-down routine,” or “Give me a two-step plan for a hard morning.” Small, repeatable, doable.
The Most Important Boundary: Don’t Let AI Become a Reassurance Loop
A reassurance loop looks like this:
- You feel anxious
- You ask AI for reassurance
- You feel better briefly
- Anxiety returns
- You ask again (often with slightly different wording)
The relief is real and temporary. Over time, the brain learns: I can’t settle without external reassurance. That increases dependence and often increases anxiety.
If you notice repeated checking, set a rule:
- One AI check, then one real-world action.
- Or one AI check, then a 30-minute pause.
You’re not depriving yourself. You’re retraining your nervous system.
AI and “Algorithmic Pressure”: When Tools Reshape Expectations
One reason AI feels mentally heavy is that it can change what you think is required of you. If your workplace adopts AI tools, “faster” can quietly become the new baseline. The OECD describes how data-driven systems can shape how work is allocated and evaluated in algorithmic management, which matters because constant evaluation pressure is stressful even when you’re performing well.
This is why a mental-health-forward approach to AI includes boundaries like:
- turning off notifications,
- protecting recovery time,
- avoiding “always available” norms,
- and setting expectations with others about response times.
AI can help you work. It should not erase your right to rest.
A Simple “AI Mental Health Checklist” You Can Use This Week
Before you use AI for emotional support or decision-making, ask:
- Is this a low-stakes task or a high-stakes one?
If it’s high-stakes (health, safety, legal, financial), use AI only for drafting questions or organizing information, then verify with an appropriate professional source.
- Am I using this to reduce friction or to chase certainty?
If it’s certain, set a time limit and one follow-up action.
- Will this output increase my load (checking, choosing, reworking)?
If yes, simplify the prompt or stop.
- What do I need more of: information, comfort, or action?
If it’s comfort, reach for something human if possible (a friend, a walk, a grounding exercise). If it’s action, ask AI to help you make a tiny plan.
Where AI Can Genuinely Help Mental Health (When Used Carefully)
Here are the uses that tend to be highest value and lowest risk:
- Drafting difficult messages (boundaries, requests for help, clarifying expectations)
- Preparing for appointments (turning symptom notes into questions)
- Turning chaos into structure (a weekly plan, a priority list, a two-step next action)
- Skill prompts (CBT-style questions, journaling structure, breathing scripts)
What AI should not be:
- your substitute for professional care,
- your emergency support,
- your sole source of reassurance,
- your primary relationship.
If You’re Struggling: Don’t Let “Productivity Support” Replace Real Support
If you’re persistently low, panicky, numb, or not sleeping, it’s worth taking seriously. A tool can be helpful, but it’s not the same as a therapeutic relationship, a GP visit, or a real support network.
Think of AI like a notebook that talks back: useful for structure, but not responsible for your wellbeing. The healthiest use of AI is the one that leaves you feeling more capable, not more dependent.
Author bio:
Alexander Amatus, MBA, is Business Development Lead at TherapyNearMe.com.au, Australia’s fastest growing national mental health service. He works at the intersection of clinical operations, AI-enabled care pathways, and sustainable digital infrastructure. He is an AI expert who leads a team developing a proprietary AI-powered psychology assistant, psAIch.
